The daintiness of my epigram pleased me so well that I was almost content, yet as I drove towards Le Bois the desire for the costume came upon me again, and I was disconsolate. For it was no ordinary bal masqué, where everything was to be pretence, from the characters represented to the fable that the dancers knew not one another. It was all to be real, and no dissimulation. There was to be no unmasking time, but every one was to be incognito from the beginning to the end. It was rumored that even our host and hostess would drive up to their own house and enter amid the throng. No one was to know any one, and yet every one was to know every one; no master of the ceremonies, no host and hostess, no introductions or formal presentations. The fact that one was there was an official stamp upon one's passport of reputation. It was a Bohemian idea worthy of her who had brought it to Paris—the Countess Zarfine, wife of the Russian Ambassador, and since, perforce, I must be masked, I would have dazzled by art instead of nature; yet it was not to be, and I grew peevish as I nursed my discomfiture.
My landau pulled up as we entered the gates, and Monsieur Roché, the Premier, from whom I had received in the past many diplomatic commissions, raised his hat and extended his hand.
"Madame, the gods love me."
"Monsieur, you are too modest; you should have used the feminine."
"I wanted to see you more than any other woman in Paris," he answered, "and therefore I repeat—'The gods love me.'"
"'Those whom the gods love,' monsieur—" and I smiled, for I would have given worlds to quarrel with some one, and preferably my best of friends.
"'Die young,' eh?" he chuckled. "Well, the danger for me is past." And then, without waiting for an invitation, he calmly stepped into the carriage and seated himself beside me.
Here was, indeed, candor too wonderful for words, and I gazed reprovingly upon him.
"You must help me, ma chère," he said, gravely. "It is no pleasantry, but a serious matter—one that touches my reputation nearly."
"Well, mon ami?"